For the first time in over 30 years, a new nuclear plant has been approved—but …

We may be at a critical point for nuclear power in the United States. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved the construction of a new nuclear plant for the first time in 30 years—just two months after approving the reactor design. On the other hand, we're also approaching the first anniversary of the disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. With these seemingly opposing events fresh in mind, now is the time to evaluate the status and future of nuclear power in the United States.

Interest in nuclear power stalled in the 1980s in the United States due to the high cost of nuclear plants and public perceptions of safety issues (particularly after the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents). According to various polls, public support for nuclear energy has steadily increased in the past decade. In 2009, a majority of people in the US supported nuclear energy. After Fukushima, this dropped to 43 percent.

A recent report compiled by the Federation of American Scientists in collaboration with Washington & Lee University recognized the country's nuclear crossroads and decided to evaluate our situation. Their conclusion? The future of nuclear power in the United States is promising, but progress is likely to be slow.

In recent years, following rising fuel prices and concerns over global climate change, nuclear power came back into the spotlight. It is, after all, a potential carbon-free alternative to coal and natural gas. But without strong government support and some sort of emissions pricing to create incentives (not to mention sufficient safety considerations), we won’t see any nuclear revolution in the US.

Where are we?

In the current nuclear energy landscape, the US has 104 nuclear reactors in 65 power plants. This represents about a quarter of the total worldwide (441 reactors, with an additional 58 under construction). Today, nuclear power plants produce about a seventh of the world’s electricity and a fifth in the US. However, this is projected to decline to about 10 percent worldwide by 2030, due to both a rising demand for electricity and the retiring of older reactors.

Map of the 104 currently operating nuclear reactors in the United States.

Two-thirds of the US reactors are pressurized water reactors (PWR) and the remaining third are boiling water reactors (BWR). Both of these fall under the class of "light water reactors," which use normal water as both reactor coolant and neutron moderator (the moderator controls the speed of neutrons to keep the nuclear fission reaction proceeding). In contrast, "heavy water reactors" use—appropriately—heavy water (deuterium oxide, D2O, is water heavily enriched with deuterium).

Both types of light water reactors generate electricity by driving turbines with steam, as in coal power plants. They differ in how energy released by fission is used to create steam. BWRs dump the energy directly into surrounding coolant water, which boils into steam. PWRs, by contrast, transfer the fission energy to highly pressurized coolant water, which then flows through a heat exchanger to convert secondary coolant water into steam. The benefit is the secondary water stream is closed and doesn’t pick up any radioactivity. However, that's at the cost of requiring significantly stronger piping to withstand the higher pressure (typically around 15.5 megapascals, or 153 times atmospheric pressure).

Neutron moderator

Fission reactions release fast, high energy neutrons, moving at around five percent of the speed of light. In order to propagate the nuclear chain reaction, these fast neutrons must be slowed down to a few kilometers per second. The nuclei of moderators do this by colliding with the neutrons, simultaneously slowing them down and absorbing their kinetic energy (due to that pesky conservation of energy). This heats the moderator up. Light water absorbs more neutrons than heavy water, so light water reactors need enriched uranium for fuel (whereas heavy water reactors can get away with unenriched natural uranium).

Light water reactors run on enriched uranium. The enrichment is necessary because naturally occurring uranium has less than one percent uranium-235, the fissile isotope of uranium (the rest is uranium-238). Now, “enriched uranium” sounds scary because of the nuclear weapon connotations, but reactors only need around three to five percent enrichment. Nuclear weapons need more than 90 percent.

The first generation of nuclear power plants were the original prototype reactors built by the military and the initial power plants of the 1950s and 1960s. The current fleet of nuclear reactors, Generation II, were built primarily by Westinghouse and GE. The last nuclear reactor in the US began construction in 1977, although the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant was the last commercial reactor to come online (May 1996).

Many of these Generation II reactors had an original design life of 30 or 40 years. Now utilities are seeking license extensions for most of these. The NRC already extended the licenses of 70 reactors to either 50 or 60 years, and 15 other applications are under review as of July 1, 2011.

The Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station in Tennessee was the last in the US to be brought online, in 1996.

It’s all about the Benjamins

Proponents for greater use of nuclear power often tout its low cost and zero emissions. According to the US Energy Information Administration, electricity from nuclear power will cost 11.39 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) in 2016. By comparison, conventional coal plants would generate electricity at 9.5 cents per kWh and onshore wind at 9.7 cents per kWh. Advanced natural gas plants offer by far the lowest cost at 6.6 cents per kWh.

However, it isn’t the cost of electricity that’s the problem. The largest barrier to more nuclear power plants may be the initial cost of construction. According to the report, the capital cost of nuclear plants always escalated over original estimates. The final costs of plants built through 1980—meaning all of them, since only one has been built since 1978—were on average 50 percent higher than comparable coal plants. This even includes retrofits to the coal plants to meet the higher emissions standards of the Clean Air Act.

Comparison of electricity costs from nuclear, coal, and gas from different studies.

Cost escalation remains an issue. A group of companies announced a two-reactor project in Texas in 2006, with an estimated cost of $5.2 billion. Three years later, the cost was revised to $10 billion, then $13 billion a few weeks later. The final estimate eventually reached $18.2 billion, over three times the original estimate. That's more expensive than an equivalently-sized natural gas plants, which also wouldn’t take nearly as long to build.

Considering the increasingly low price of electricity from natural gas, the report emphasized the need for some sort of carbon pricing to make nuclear attractive. Natural gas power plants are beginning to replace coal plants and they emit about half the greenhouse gases. Without a price on carbon dioxide emissions, nuclear power is actually more expensive than coal, oil, or natural gas, due to the massive upfront cost.

With this in mind, how can we fund nuclear power? Currently, the main route is through federal loan guarantees, where the government assumes the debt of the power utility if it defaults on its loans. The government awarded $8.3 billion in 2010 for two new plants in Georgia. The next year, the DOE requested $36 billion for loan guarantees. Keep in mind this money is only actually spent if the recipient defaults.

However, authors of the report contend the combination of the current deficit-spending environment and the high cost of nuclear plants (especially compared to natural gas) makes it difficult to defend continued loan guarantees from the federal government. Instead, they argue for a viable bond market to finance long-term projects like these. This would require, for example, stable Federal Reserve policies, low corporate tax and capital gain rates, a strong currency, and stable economic growth.

According to the report, the main obstacle to financing nuclear power plant construction is federal deficit spending. With a growing deficit, the supply of US Treasury bonds increases and corporate debt is either displaced or becomes more expensive. This makes it increasingly difficult to finance nuclear plant construction, outside of federal loan guarantees.

Safety and security concerns

Safety is another big issue with nuclear power plants—especially the public perception of safety. Following the accidents at Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986, the public lost confidence in nuclear power. Since then, a variety of safety improvements have been made in both the designs and operating practices of nuclear plants. According to the report, plant designs have been carefully analyzed and improved. Plants adopted safer operating practices, and the people operating the plants are better trained.

However, other groups such as the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) think the NRC can do a better job regulating nuclear power plants, especially regarding safety. In a 2011 report, they describe in detail 14 “near-miss” safety or security incidents occurring in 2009 and 2010. In a few of these, both the plant operator and the NRC knew about safety violations but did not take action. For example, at the Indian Point plant in New York, NRC inspectors knew about a leaky liner for refueling cavity since 1993, but took no action (saying that it only leaks when filed with water… at a rate of two to 20 gallons a minute). Such a liner exists to prevent leakage if reinforced concrete walls crack during an earthquake, which it obviously could not do if already leaking.

The Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, NY, had a leaking refueling cavity liner since 1993 that both the operator (Entergy) and the NRC knew about.

The UCS report did acknowledge cases where NRC investigators discovered serious problems and took the appropriate actions to resolve them. The report concluded that while the NRC performed commendably in same cases, in general it enables lax behavior.

Many of the new safety improvements rely on passive rather than active systems. For example, instead of pumping coolant, passive safety features use gravity, natural circulation, and compressed air to cool the core and provide containment in an accident. These are not only simpler, but also lower cost since they require less complex components and supporting systems. By moving to passive systems, Westinghouse was able to reduce the number of valves by half, use 35 percent fewer pumps, 80 percent less pipe, and 70 percent less cable in an improved reactor design.

Ensuring the safety of nuclear plants from natural accidents is one thing, but providing for the security of plants from terrorist attacks is another entirely. In 2000, over 100,000 people lived in the 10-mile emergency zone around a fifth of nuclear sites. If safety systems were damaged enough, the resulting reactor core meltdown could release radiation to these close areas. This might sound unrealistic, but nuclear power plants were some of the targets considered for the 9/11 attacks.

After 9/11, the NRC and Congress took steps to improve security measures. Previous threat assumptions considered a team of three attackers helped by a single passive inside operative. The details of the new threat assumptions weren’t made public, but the capabilities of potential attackers were increased significantly.

Now, plants must be able to withstand attacks from a larger number of attackers (around five) and from multiple entry points, and who are willing to kill or be killed. In addition, the plants must be able to defend against both land and water vehicles, bombs, and cyber attacks such as the Stuxnet worm. However, even with these improvements, there are still questions about threats from terrorist groups. In particular, according to the report, aircraft attacks aren’t considered, even after 9/11.

One area the report didn’t address is the safety of extending reactor lifetimes. The NRC already approved license extensions of an additional 20 years for many reactors, and most (if not all) of the rest will probably also get extensions. The authors predict some of these could get further extensions, putting them at 80 years. According to a 2011 investigative report by the Associated Press, the safety reviews in this relicensing process aren’t always fully independent. They even cite instances where the NRC paperwork matches word-for-word with the application written by the plant operator.

These days, the NRC and nuclear power industry contend that the 40 year operating life was chosen for economic and regulatory reasons. According to them, nuclear plants have no technical lifetime limit. The AP investigation reviewed records and interviewed nuclear engineers who worked the designs, finding the opposite: the reactors were designed to only operate for 40 years.

After Fukushima, and with explosive renewable energy growth especially in Europe, solar power likely to reach grid parity and become cheaper than fossil fuels within a decade, nuclear has no chance. Nuclear is too expensive, too complex, too dangerous. No sane person will ever invest in nuclear because nuclear is too risky and will likely have little to no returns in investments.

I am always surprised by the relatively low amounts of waste that Nuclear energy puts out.

Sure it is dangerous, but 23 tons a year seems to me to be an incredibly small number, but then we all know the power of the atom.

Shame nuclear waste is so dangerous though.

Still... 23tons a year.

On the topic of small modular reactors, what would be the problem of say, creating land-based submarine reactors? The US Navy reactor designs seem to be extremely successful, safe and numerous, and what would be the limitations if we were to put a few of these on land?

And since the system is so small (relatively) surely it would be relatively easy to make resilient enclosures for them ?

Isn't it true, however, that 1 year after the tsunami that killed 15,850, caused 6,011 injuries, and 3,287 people missing thousands and damaged a few reactors among 125,000 buildings:

- radiation deaths have been exactly zero- adverse health effects from radiation exposure at Fukushima have been zero.

Seems like much ado about very little, if you ask me.

Wrong, as usual you're conveniently ignoring the long-term effects of radiation, the one that matters the most. And besides, there are already few people who have died working at the disaster site. We have no idea what the both long and short term effects of radiation will be.

Oh, and did I mention that Tepco, Japan's monopolistic electric company, is now basically bankrupt? That's right, a single nuclear accident has bankrupted an entire electric utility. Did I also mention that the clean-up will cost more than $100 billion and will take more than 40 years? This is sheer insanity, nobody should, or would want to take this kind of risk, not especially the investors.

Isn't it true, however, that 1 year after the tsunami that killed 15,850, caused 6,011 injuries, and 3,287 people missing thousands and damaged a few reactors among 125,000 buildings:

- radiation deaths have been exactly zero- adverse health effects from radiation exposure at Fukushima have been zero.

Seems like much ado about very little, if you ask me.

Wrong, as usual you're conveniently ignoring the long-term effects of radiation, the one that matters the most. And besides, there are already few people who have died working at the disaster site. We have no idea what the both long and short term effects of radiation will be.

Oh, and did I mention that Tepco, Japan's monopolistic electric company, is now basically bankrupt? That's right, a single nuclear accident has bankrupted an entire electric utility. Did I also mention that the clean-up will cost more than $100 billion and will take more than 40 years? This is sheer insanity, nobody should, or would want to take this kind of risk, not especially the investors.

Not to mention the agricultural costs. Rice and vegetable harvest from the entire region are now avoided by Japanese consumers due to fears of radioactive contamination (a few crops have tested above average radioactivity). There's also the unknown environmental impact on fish in the ocean from dumping of contaminated water.

I hear a lot online from questionable sources about the "miracle" thorium reactors. Didn't see much here about it. Is there actually something to it or is it another one of those conspiracy theory perpetual motion ideas?

there are already few people who have died working at the disaster site. We have no idea what the both long and short term effects of radiation will be.

Where do you come up with these made up facts?

Who has died from any sort of radiation as a result of the Fukushima accident?

Who has gotten sick?

No one, that's who. The Greens are always making up these sort of libels against the industry. They said that Communist Chernobyl was going to kill hundreds of thousands.

It killed 64, according to the frisking United Nations. And that does include 31 plant workers. And that was a very primitive Communist design that we in the West wouldn't even have thought of using. The thing didn't even have a containment vessel!

there are already few people who have died working at the disaster site. We have no idea what the both long and short term effects of radiation will be.

Where do you come up with these made up facts?

Who has died from any sort of radiation as a result of the Fukushima accident?

Who has gotten sick?

No one, that's who. The Greens are always making up these sort of libels against the industry. They said that Communist Chernobyl was going to kill hundreds of thousands.

It killed 64, according to the frisking United Nations. And that does include 31 plant workers. And that was a very primitive Communist design that we in the West wouldn't even have thought of using. The thing didn't even have a containment vessel!

Wow, can you be biased anymore? Since you're quoting those sources:

"The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the death toll could reach 4,000 civilian deaths, a figure which does not include military clean-up worker casualties.[13] The Union of Concerned Scientists estimate that for the broader population there will be 50,000 excess cancer cases resulting in 25,000 excess cancer deaths.[14] The 2006 TORCH report predicted 30,000 to 60,000 cancer deaths as a result of Chernobyl fallout.[15] A Greenpeace report puts this figure at 200,000 or more. A Russian publication, Chernobyl, concludes that 985,000 premature cancer deaths occurred worldwide between 1986 and 2004 as a result of radioactive contamination from Chernobyl.[16]"

there are already few people who have died working at the disaster site. We have no idea what the both long and short term effects of radiation will be.

Where do you come up with these made up facts?

Who has died from any sort of radiation as a result of the Fukushima accident?

Who has gotten sick?

No one, that's who. The Greens are always making up these sort of libels against the industry. They said that Communist Chernobyl was going to kill hundreds of thousands.

It killed 64, according to the frisking United Nations. And that does include 31 plant workers. And that was a very primitive Communist design that we in the West wouldn't even have thought of using. The thing didn't even have a containment vessel!

Yes, because the immediate deaths are the only concern of nuclear power, and not the fact that if the plants meltdown they essentially leave an area uninhabitable for decades.

I hear a lot online from questionable sources about the "miracle" thorium reactors. Didn't see much here about it. Is there actually something to it or is it another one of those conspiracy theory perpetual motion ideas?

There's no conspiracy. We have the current nuclear power cycle we have because the heavy lifting, hyper-expensive research needed to move from theory to reality was funded by the military, for military reasons, and the thorium fuel cycle is not easily weaponizable.

There are many things that are attractive about using Thorium as a fuel, but it is not without its own problems, and no one is paying for the research required to progress the idea forward.

With Fukushima, you're not just dealing with some design problems (like the location of the backup generators in a coastal plant), you're also dealing with two combined exceptional natural disasters within minutes of each other. If the Fukushima reactor was located almost anywhere else in the world, there likely wouldn't have been nearly as much of an issue - if any at all.

First, you get an earthquake strong enough that it caused problems and triggered a reactor shutdown, though the backup generators should have successfully kept both the active and spent fuel cool after the reactors shut down. Then you get hit by a large tsunami which destroys a ton of plant infrastructure and kills both external power and the generators.

Burning coal puts out a lot of radiation into the environment. It adds CO2, and particulate pollution into the atmosphere as well. Mining of coal is very harmful to the environment, even including the utter destruction of entire mountains and thoroughly containment the surrounding surface water for decades. It can be tied to many more deaths per year than nuclear as well:

So while radiation is a major issue, and lessons must be taken from Fukushima, it was a very rare situation. As a staunch environmentalist, I'm strongly in favor of increased use of safer, more efficient modern nuclear plant designs over coal as a transition technology to more sustainable energy sources like solar, wind and tidal.

Who has died from any sort of radiation as a result of the Fukushima accident?

Who has gotten sick?

You sir, are an idiot. There ARE some people who died working at the site. Whether that is the result of radiation or not, we don't know. But the fact is that there are casualties, because the conditions are so harsh and grim. You act like as if risking your life to stop a nuclear accident from getting worse is like taking a walk in the park.

XavierItzmann wrote:

No one, that's who. The Greens are always making up these sort of libels against the industry. They said that Communist Chernobyl was going to kill hundreds of thousands.

Not only that you are an idiot, but you are also a jerk. Apparently, you are only concerned about "protecting the industry", but not the lives of people who might be poisoned with radiation. Do you by any chance work for the nuclear industry? Your views are completely biased and distorted because you are more interested in being a laptop for the nuclear industry, apparently.

XavierItzmann wrote:

It killed 64, according to the frisking United Nations. And that does include 31 plant workers.

Oh, it only killed 64? Please. Who's making up stuff again?

XavierItzmann wrote:

And that was a very primitive Communist design that we in the West wouldn't even have thought of using. The thing didn't even have a containment vessel!

Guess what? Japan has been saying the same thing until now. And look how that has turned out for them. A level-7 disaster that is easily worse than Chernobyl.

"The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the death toll could reach 4,000 civilian deaths, a figure which does not include military clean-up worker casualties.[13] The Union of Concerned Scientists estimate that for the broader population there will be 50,000 excess cancer cases resulting in 25,000 excess cancer deaths.[14] The 2006 TORCH report predicted 30,000 to 60,000 cancer deaths as a result of Chernobyl fallout.[15] A Greenpeace report puts this figure at 200,000 or more. A Russian publication, Chernobyl, concludes that 985,000 premature cancer deaths occurred worldwide between 1986 and 2004 as a result of radioactive contamination from Chernobyl.[16]"

Yeap, all of these are nice old scaredy-cat projections. Union of Concerned Scientists? What is this, stand-up comedy?

Actual 2008 results, 22 years after chernobyl, reported by the United Nations: 64 deaths. Jeez, more people routinely get killed un Russian air accidents.

The potential of SMR's is interesting to say the least. While hopefully soon we can replace most energy production with solar grids I doubt it would be that easy as some people make it to be. SMR's seem like the perfect stop-gap between coal/oil and renewable/fusion(?). Now if we can do something about those cars...

There's no use arguing with the nuclear idiots, because they will readily lie, distort and fabricate data to keep pushing their nuclear agenda. They must be getting paid quite a lot of money by the nuclear industry to do so. They have no morals or ethics whatsoever. They do not care about the victims of nuclear radiation, they will readily push them aside, ignore them and laugh in their face if that meant getting more precious $$$ from the nuclear industry.

These nuclear idiots work for the nuclear industry, clear and simple. They are nothing but shills for the industry. That would explain their bizarre, deceiving, utterly insincere attitude towards anything nuclear. That would explain why they would, without concern, readily lie, fabricate and spin any factual data concerning nuclear.

Oh, and by the way there are NO working commercial thorium reactors, despite all the governments of the world, especially India and Russia, having worked on it for over 40 years.

Nuclear Power plants are absolutely terrible for the environment . They have the potential to destroy life for Centuries and make areas inhabitable. All it takes is one slip up. Is it worth it? I don't think so.

So while radiation is a major issue, and lessons must be taken from Fukushima, it was a very rare situation. As a staunch environmentalist, I'm strongly in favor of increased use of safer, more efficient modern nuclear plant designs over coal as a transition technology to more sustainable energy sources like solar, wind and tidal.

You've got it all backwards. The fact that it was a very rare situation is the very reason why Fukushima has occurred. The whole point was that this was out of their control. We can NOT predict disasters or accidents, or else there would be no accidents. The fact that a nuclear meltdown can absolutely NOT happen, is the very reason why we should not have any nuclear plants at all.

What if say, a meteor strikes a nuclear plant? Improbable, but it's not impossible, just like what happened to Fukushima.

We do not need any transitional energy, as renewables are already there. Besides, having nuclear would not help, as each nuclear plants cost billions and take decades to build. It would not even be transitional, by that time renewables would already be taking over.

I hear a lot online from questionable sources about the "miracle" thorium reactors. Didn't see much here about it. Is there actually something to it or is it another one of those conspiracy theory perpetual motion ideas?

I too was interested to see no mention made of Thorium as a nuclear fuel. I wonder if the FAS report considered it at all. It seems as if the Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor is a potentially viable nuclear power generation option with many advantages over current Uranium fueled reactors (according to Kirk Sorensen's <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/kirk_sorensen_thorium_an_alternative_nuclear_fuel.html" class="postlink" rel="nofollow">TED Talk</a>), however it was shelved in the 70's for a number of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI" class="postlink" rel="nofollow">reasons</a>, most of them largely political.It would be great to see at least some pilot projects getting started around Thorium.

After Fukushima, and with explosive renewable energy growth especially in Europe, solar power likely to reach grid parity and become cheaper than fossil fuels within a decade, nuclear has no chance. Nuclear is too expensive, too complex, too dangerous. No sane person will ever invest in nuclear because nuclear is too risky and will likely have little to no returns in investments.

A lot of this is FUD.

Even if solar power does become cheaper than fossil fuels within a decade (and that's a very optimistic prediction at best), solar power, like almost all forms of renewable energy that aren't hydro, suffers from being intermittent. Solar is way less fickle than wind, but the grid still needs to be powered on the shortest, cloudiest day in December. Something needs to provide that base capacity for the grid and not all areas have hydroelectric resources, so nuclear is a good candidate for that base capacity (certainly more preferable than coal)

Not sure where you get the perception that nuclear is dangerous. Quite the opposite. You can whine all you want about nuclear power and its supposed nefarious lobby, but the facts about nuclear power's safety are pretty clear-cut in nuclear's favor:http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... aphic.html

I will agree with you on cost, though. Capital costs for nuclear reactors are crazy astronomical

I hear a lot online from questionable sources about the "miracle" thorium reactors. Didn't see much here about it. Is there actually something to it or is it another one of those conspiracy theory perpetual motion ideas?

I too was interested to see no mention made of Thorium as a nuclear fuel. I wonder if the FAS report considered it at all. It seems as if the Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor is a potentially viable nuclear power generation option with many advantages over current Uranium fueled reactors (according to Kirk Sorensen's <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/kirk_sorensen_thorium_an_alternative_nuclear_fuel.html" class="postlink" rel="nofollow">TED Talk</a>), however it was shelved in the 70's for a number of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI" class="postlink" rel="nofollow">reasons</a>, most of them largely political.It would be great to see at least some pilot projects getting started around Thorium.

To answer your question about the report, they mentioned thorium once. Specifically, Indian Point Unit 1 was a thorium-fueled 275 MW breeder reactor that entered service in 1962. The original estimated cost was $55 million, and the final cost was $110 million.

According to this American Scientist article from 2003, performance was poorer than expected so they switched to traditional uranium fuel. The reactor itself was shut down permanently in 1974.

Even if solar power does become cheaper than fossil fuels within a decade (and that's a very optimistic prediction at best), solar power, like almost all forms of renewable energy that aren't hydro, suffers from being intermittent. Solar is way less fickle than wind, but the grid still needs to be powered on the shortest, cloudiest day in December. Something needs to provide that base capacity for the grid and not all areas have hydroelectric resources, so nuclear is a good candidate for that base capacity (certainly more preferable than coal)

Fukushima and Chernobyl are FUD? I don't think so.

As for being intermittent, solar energy can be stored in fuel cells and other batteries. And besides, sun is always shining somewhere, and the wind is also always blowing somewhere. All we need to do is collect those energies from various sources.

U-235 is called a “fertile” material since it can be transformed into fissile plutonium-239 by interacting with high-energy neutrons.

No, that would be U-238. U-235 is fissile; it's more likely to fission when hit by a neutron (high or low energy) than to absorb it. The other major fertile material, as has been alluded to in the comments already, is thorium (of which the vast majority is the fertile Th-232; other isotopes exist in nature only in trace amounts, so there's no need for enriching the fuel.)

Oh, and did I mention that Tepco, Japan's monopolistic electric company, is now basically bankrupt? That's right, a single nuclear accident has bankrupted an entire electric utility. Did I also mention that the clean-up will cost more than $100 billion and will take more than 40 years? This is sheer insanity, nobody should, or would want to take this kind of risk, not especially the investors.

IMO this is why it shouldn't have to be up to investors. Fossil fuels are going to run out eventually, and are going to increase in cost over time as reserves dwindle. Oil is already becoming outrageously expensive, and while we have plenty of coal and natural gas, calling either of those environmentally friendly is short-sighted, especially if you consider the damage and danger when it comes to mining the coal or fracking to extract the gas.

Nuclear development should be government funded, and if necessary passed off to private industry to maintain the plants after they are built. Yes, nuclear plants have certain dangers, but while we know coal burning plants will continuously spew carbon and pollutants into the atmosphere and natural gas plants will require more gas which in return requires more fracking and more contamination of ground water, nuclear plants only cause problems if there is a disaster.

Renewable energy is too expensive and logistically complicated to fill all of our current energy needs, much less what we will need in the future as more cars on the road move to batteries and electric motors instead of internal combustion engines. Solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, etc, will likely always have a place, and solar in particular should become more cost effective as the technology develops, but nothing is more future proof at this point than nuclear.

On the topic of small modular reactors, what would be the problem of say, creating land-based submarine reactors? The US Navy reactor designs seem to be extremely successful, safe and numerous, and what would be the limitations if we were to put a few of these on land?

U-235 is called a “fertile” material since it can be transformed into fissile plutonium-239 by interacting with high-energy neutrons.

No, that would be U-238. U-235 is fissile; it's more likely to fission when hit by a neutron (high or low energy) than to absorb it. The other major fertile material, as has been alluded to in the comments already, is thorium (of which the vast majority is the fertile Th-232; other isotopes exist in nature only in trace amounts, so there's no need for enriching the fuel.)

Wow! Major typo! Thanks for that, it's been corrected. (in my defense, I used them correctly earlier in the piece...)

We can NOT predict disasters or accidents, or else there would be no accidents.

Which applies to all power generation systems, and why passive safety systems *should* be the norm for all plants. Don't forget to include mining accidents when you add up the risks of various sources of energy.

What if say, a meteor strikes a nuclear plant? Improbable, but it's not impossible, just like what happened to Fukushima.

Again, passive safety systems. If this were to happen, the majority of such projectiles wouldn't be able to breach the outer walls (given that they are built to withstand impacts from jetliners), and one large enough to spread radioactive material over any sort of significant area would be large enough to cause destruction on a considerable scale to whatever it hits. A full-on melt-down would only be a concern for 50-year old designs using active backup and shutdown systems, like Fukushima. Not the sort of reactors being discussed here.

(edit: I keep harping on coal because not only is fighting against new Nuclear plants potentially going to extend the mining and burning of coal in the long term, but also because it prompts some countries to shut down their nuclear reactors in fear of a potential meltdown. At the same time, people don't reduce their energy consumption, and thus coal plants pick of the load (See Germany). It's self-defeating)

Quote:

We do not need any transitional energy, as renewables are already there. Besides, having nuclear would not help, as each nuclear plants cost billions and take decades to build. It would not even be transitional, by that time renewables would already be taking over.

This may be a very valid point. My understanding is that the cost/watt for renewables is not yet to the point that we could actually switch everything over today. even with massive grants to fund the infrastructure, the per-watt cost would cause people to revolt against the switch, making it a a non-feasible transition today. The race, then, would be to build the economies of scale for renewables faster than the nuclear plants can be built, in order to not only make the inevitable shift to those sources a technical possibility, but a practical one as well.

Even if solar power does become cheaper than fossil fuels within a decade (and that's a very optimistic prediction at best), solar power, like almost all forms of renewable energy that aren't hydro, suffers from being intermittent. Solar is way less fickle than wind, but the grid still needs to be powered on the shortest, cloudiest day in December. Something needs to provide that base capacity for the grid and not all areas have hydroelectric resources, so nuclear is a good candidate for that base capacity (certainly more preferable than coal)

Fukushima and Chernobyl are FUD? I don't think so.

As for being intermittent, solar energy can be stored in fuel cells and other batteries. And besides, sun is always shining somewhere, and the wind is also always blowing somewhere. All we need to do is collect those energies from various sources.

Solar energy can be stored in fuel cells? Do you know what you're talking about? Fuel cells are a way of running a controlled redox reaction on some chemical (hydrogen, gasoline, etc.), not a way of storing energy. As for batteries, the sheer quantity of nickel, lead, lithium, etc, that would be required would be insane, not to mention the astronomical costs. A battery that goes into an battery electric car tends to cost around $10k - $20k.

And barring this, electricity HAS to be generated locally to a certain extent. We can't just cover the Mojave desert with PV cells and string high voltage wires across the country; not only would that be a nightmare to synchronize, but the transmission losses would be prohibitive.

Unless you have better safety evidence than "CHERNOBLY / FUKUSHIMA" when I've linked to an article that clearly demonstrates nuclear's far superior health and safety record compared to coal, oil, and natural gas, kindly refrain from posting scaremongering BS about nuclear power.

Nuclear development should be government funded, and if necessary passed off to private industry to maintain the plants after they are built. Yes, nuclear plants have certain dangers, but while we know coal burning plants will continuously spew carbon and pollutants into the atmosphere and natural gas plants will require more gas which in return requires more fracking and more contamination of ground water, nuclear plants only cause problems if there is a disaster.

It IS mostly government funded, otherwise we could not even build a single nuclear plant due to the fact that they cost too much.

NulloModo wrote:

Renewable energy is too expensive and logistically complicated to fill all of our current energy needs, much less what we will need in the future as more cars on the road move to batteries and electric motors instead of internal combustion engines. Solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, etc, will likely always have a place, and solar in particular should become more cost effective as the technology develops, but nothing is more future proof at this point than nuclear.

Yet renewables are already about to get cheaper than fossil fuels. I believe concentrated solar power, wind, hydro, etc are already cheaper than fossil fuels.

There is nothing future-proof about nuclear, we haven't even figured out what to do with all the nuclear waste yet!

Again, passive safety systems. If this were to happen, the majority wouldn't be able to breach the outer walls (given that they are built to withstand impacts from jetliners), and one large enough to spread radioactive material over any sort of significant area would be large enough to cause destruction on a considerable scale to whatever it hits. This would only be a concern for 50-year old designs using active backup and shutdown systems, like Fukushima. Not the sort of reactors being discussed here.

"Passive safety" does NOT mean "completely safe forever". It only means that it won't need to be cooled for a few days. Something CAN go wrong. All it needs for nuclear fuel to meltdown is to not be cooled enough for a period of time (which it will only take a day or so).

river-wind wrote:

This may be a very valid point. My understanding is that the cost/watt for renewables is not yet to the point that we could actually switch everything over today. even with massive grants to fund the infrastructure, the per-watt cost would cause people to revolt against the switch, making it a a non-feasible transition today. The race, then, would be to build the economies of scale for renewables faster than the nuclear plants can be built, in order to not only make the inevitable shift to those sources not only a technical possibility, but a practical one as well.

But this is already happening, renewables are growing explosively especially in countries like Germany. Solar power is already about to get cheaper than fossil fuels. Which means that people will switch to solar power for economic incentives alone.

Be wary of over-simplifying the current cost dip in solar relative to fossil fuels. Many factors suggest that China is selling their panels well below cost in a trade war against US and European manufacturers. This current price dip is likely temporary, and should not be considered a change in the general cost-reduction trend.

edit:RE passive safety. Depends on the design. Some require constant cooling, and the passive safety, as you mention, simply doesn't require active power input to cool the system. However, other designs result in the fuel cooling by itself when power is lost, such that a run-away reaction/melt down would not occur even without continual cooling. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety

Example:"In some designs the core of a fast breeder reactor is immersed into a pool of liquid metal. If the reactor overheats, thermal expansion of the metallic fuel and cladding causes more neutrons to escape the core, and the nuclear chain reaction can no longer be sustained."

Nuclear power is a lot safer than relying on foreign oil- most of which is on unfriendly territory- to fuel our economy, army and pretty much our way of life. Fossil fuel is by far the dirtiest and riskiest energy source we'll ever get to use.

We could get around 90% of our energy from nuclear reactors, while keeping the planet cleaner and safer for everyone; but most of you are too shortsighted, stupid or just opportunistic to embrace the idea and push it forward.

I was a nuclear engineer in the Navy, and I was there in Japane during the fukushima disaster. My ship was one of the ships that was covered with Fukushima's fallout. After all was said and done, the total amount of radiation and contamination we all received was less than what we normally got from our own plants.

Yes, the immediate area was affected, but beyond that, there was no real short-term impact to people or the environment. Long-term, I doubt there will be any persisting effects that aren't within the area of the disaster.

I say it's a good idea to build more nuclear plants in the U.S. Most, if not all, of the current operators of nuclear plants are from the Navy. The navy has operated hundreds of reactors over the past 58 years, and there have been ZERO (0) accidents relating to nuclear power. They are the safest plants in the world, and the people who operate them go on to operate the commercial plants in the US. As for me, I am NOT working in any plant now, and never plan to ever again. But that is based on personal reasons.

The reactors are safe. Nuclear power has been given a bad rap. There are other things far worse. A lot of people don't know that you can get more radiation from Smoking every year than you ever would by living next to a power plant. You'd also get more radiation from bananas and ceramic pottery. I'm not joking. and I'm not lying either.

Whether you believe me or not, you can look up the facts yourselves. At the very least, be informed in the subject.

It IS mostly government funded, otherwise we could not even build a single nuclear plant due to the fact that they cost too much.

Increase the federal subsidies to the point where it's stupid not to build a nuclear reactor. The costs are shared evenly amongst taxpayers to the benefit of all - ample power to meet our needs, and less dependence on foreign oil.

I'd personally like to see it go further and have both power and water run as non-profit government monopolies so that everyone's costs go down, but I don't see that happening.

Quote:

Yet renewables are already about to get cheaper than fossil fuels. I believe concentrated solar power, wind, hydro, etc are already cheaper than fossil fuels.

There is nothing future-proof about nuclear, we haven't even figured out what to do with all the nuclear waste yet!

I haven't seen any research showing that the cost per kwh for renewables is going to approach or beat what we can do with nuclear or fossil fuels, but I'd be interested in reading it if you can point the way.

We did have a great plan to store the nuclear waste in some mountain out in the desert before it was scrapped due in large due to fear mongering.

Solar energy can be stored in fuel cells? Do you know what you're talking about? Fuel cells are a way of running a controlled redox reaction on some chemical (hydrogen, gasoline, etc.), not a way of storing energy. As for batteries, the sheer quantity of nickel, lead, lithium, etc, that would be required would be insane, not to mention the astronomical costs. A battery that goes into an battery electric car tends to cost around $10k - $20k.

Do YOU know what you're talking about. Ok, I admit that I'm no expert, but this is what I heard from Ray Kurzweil. He is saying that solar energy can be stored in nano-engineered fuel cells. What's the problem?

p.w.j wrote:

And barring this, electricity HAS to be generated locally to a certain extent. We can't just cover the Mojave desert with PV cells and string high voltage wires across the country; not only would that be a nightmare to synchronize, but the transmission losses would be prohibitive.

This technology is already available. We can already send electricity 5000km+ away, inter-continentally, using long-range high voltage cables with minimum electricity loss. This is already about to get started in Europe. Look up this thing called Desertec. The whole idea is to send the massive amount of solar energy from North Africa to Europe. And it is already getting started in Tunisia.

Do YOU know what you're talking about. Ok, I admit that I'm no expert, but this is what I heard from Ray Kurzweil. He is saying that solar energy can be stored in nano-engineered fuel cells. What's the problem?

He also says that he believes within his lifetime mankind will be able to develop a means of transferring our consciousness into computers to achieve immortality. I'm not saying it won't happen, but whats theoretically possible, what feasible, and what's logistically realistic are all very different things.

On the topic of small modular reactors, what would be the problem of say, creating land-based submarine reactors? The US Navy reactor designs seem to be extremely successful, safe and numerous, and what would be the limitations if we were to put a few of these on land?

Uhm, climate change? Massive amounts of CO2 sinking into our oceans and atmosphere? I don't get how environmentalists can rally around global warming yet wholly reject nuclear power out of FUD. I'm all for wind and solar, but let's get real.

While wind/solar might offer a future solution, unfortunately they, like nuclear, would require massive capital investments in T&D to get all that capacity from sources (midwest, east rockies) to loads (coasts). (Sorry hydro is tapped.) On top of that, last time I checked wind/solar remain susceptible to the weather. Sure average wind speeds and average solar radiation look pretty, but what about those lulls and cloudy days? Until storage technologies produce a viable means of regulating energy supply/demand, claiming wind and solar are a panacea to all things energy is but a pipedream. You'll still need base generating capacity, and that should not be oil/coal/ng.

So what nuclear reactors take a while to build... at least they aren't dependent on some future leaps in technology. The carbon we are dumping into our atmosphere and oceans, and will continue to dump should we waste time waiting for a perfect solution, is more cause for alarm than any risks associated with nuclear. Build wind, build solar, but build nuclear as well.

Kyle Niemeyer / Kyle is a science writer for Ars Technica. He is a postdoctoral scholar at Oregon State University and has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Case Western Reserve University. Kyle's research focuses on combustion modeling.